Business is War
by MiralukaJedi
Summary: The young Talon Karrade has his first taste of the smuggling business when he comes under the tutleage of an eccentric associate of Jorge Car'das.


_Business is war. Modern saying_- Jabba the Hutt

Kantaanian smuggler Eira-Moriah Pajari disliked uncivilised settings such as the one that she now found herself in but the life of a smuggler frequently called upon her to make that sacrifice. If the wily Pajari had her way, she would have had this exchange take place in an open air cafe in the Colonies or a clean, respectable spaceport with tamed docking officials willing to look the other way at her illicit activities. But no, she had to trudge half-way across the galaxy to this desiccated dust ball of a planet to the rusted hellhole of a palace where the great despicable slug held court over a thoroughly depraved court of miscreants, hangers on, and the lowest of the low he kept entertained with all sorts of murderous activities and butchery.

And all of this was a favour of a friend and business partner, Jorj Car'das, to gain information that the extravagant thug had in his possession that Car'das felt the need to possess. It was also coupled with a training mission of sorts. Pajari was to teach some of the ways of the smuggling trade to a young man who had recently come into the Car'das organisation- Talon Karrde.

Given the setting where she was finding herself, she would have preferred to leave young Karrde with the ship while she dealt with the slug and his thugs for fear that he would cause problems with the negotiations due to his inexperience. The kind of problems that could potentially lead to one or both of them being corpses for the bloody entertainment of the crowds dwelling in the Hutt's court at the moment.

_Ah, but Car'das insisted and asked that you impart on the youngling not only your many decades of experience but also some practical knowledge too. Oh yes, and he imparted his belief that the young man could handle anything that the great slug has in his slimy hands. _She thought to herself dubiously.

But she would obey Car'das request. To a Kantaanian, even one has odd as she, bonds of any sort: friendship, business, and family- were seen as iron-clad contracts one could not break without willing the universe to destroy itself. So, for the sake of the universe, she would do as she was asked.

She simply hoped that the great slug was in a cooperative rather than a murderous mood.

Talon Karrade had no idea what to make of the smuggler who Car'das had paired him with for his first mission. He had never met a Kantaanian and was somewhat at odds seeing the way this one acted when compared to what little he knew about them. While they were said to so closely resemble humans and be incredibly long lived, as well as being unusually dedicated to spiritual and intellectual pursuits, this one wasn't.

Eira-Moriah Pajari, like many of her compatriots, did closely resemble humans. In fact, he wouldn't have known that she belonged to the near-human Kantaanians unless Car'das had told him. She also looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties- Car'das had laughed at that when he told him of her real age: two hundred and seventy-six years old. An ancient in human terms but merely entering middle age in Kantaanian years.

But she wasn't all that spiritual- far from it she seemed to have cursed the universe on a regular basis since Car'das had told her that he needed her to bargain for a piece of important information that happened to be in the possession of Jabba the Hutt. He didn't see any other indications that Pajari was a Kantaanian rather than a baseline human. A simple and seemingly conventional smuggler who had nothing new to teach him- not the innovative one that Car'das had promised would help to introduce him to the trade.

These thoughts continued as Pajari's ship, _Starlight Dancer, _set down in the Mos Eisley docking bay and powered down. She grumbled under her breath in the nearly unintelligible Kantaanian language before turning to him and switching effortlessly to Basic.

"I want you to understand before we go to Jabba's palace that you saying anything would be a very stupid idea. The Hutt has very little patience for amateurs, even if they are very promising. And if you were to say anything that angered the Hutt, we would both end up dead and end up starting a war between Car'das and the damned Hutt's underlings. And that alone would be very damaging to the very essence of the universe." The elder smuggler lectured, complete with a wagging finger in his direction.

The young Karrade had to wonder if Pajari thought that all those younger than her- which, in this situation would be pretty much everyone in the organisation. And that meant that above all else that he was expected to let Pajari speak and negotiate with Jabba the Hutt, participating not at all. In other words, as his dearly departed father would say, it was time to put up and shut up.

"Do you understand, Karrade?" she finally asked.

"You don't want me to talk period. Do not talk to the Hutt. Do not look at the Hutt and above all, do not feed the Hutt." He replied sarcastically.

In response, Pajari rolled her eyes somewhat and ruffled the youth's dark hair fondly as one does when dealing with a slightly foolish child. Karrade groaned in annoyance at the Kantaanian, whom had the audacity to wink at him saucily for his troubles.

From that point onward until they arrived at Jabba's palace, she generally ignored any other comments or actions that he might make.

The palace of Jabba the Hutt was pretty much what Talon had expected when he had first heard of it. The palace had an interesting and rather sinister air around it- one that one might expect to come from the lair of a Hutt gangster. The fact that it had once been a monastery of the B'omar Order somehow made matters worse. Its former occupation as a building devoted towards spiritual enlightenment was as tarnished and rusted out as its very walls.

It was, in short, a retched hive of scum and villainy.

Talon also noted that Pajari looked very displeased to be here. Her nose twitched slightly at the very sight of the place, as if the decrepit palace smelt as bad as it looked. In truth, it probably wasn't. Knowing Hutts, Talon inferred that the palace more likely smelt musty and smoky rather than any foul smell.

_Clearly, Captain Pajari dislikes this assignment and resents being given it. Much of it seems to be connected with who she is dealing with. _He thought to himself as he filed that information away in his mind for later.

For one thing there was one thing that the young man already knew that neither Car'das nor Pajari could teach him. And that was the potential value of even the most obscure and seemingly meaningless piece of information. A mere glimpse of this skill was what had prompted Car'das to offer him the chance at a place with his organisation in the first place.

But he did have one thing yet to learn and that was controlling his tongue. He couldn't even stop himself from speaking a random thought as it rolled off his tongue.

"Is there reason that you dislike Hutts, Captain?"

Pajari turned to look at him with a subtle look of surprise on her face. But it she quickly covered it up with a mask of cool indifference.

"Hutts are uncivilised and they conduct business in an uncivilised manner. No matter what any smuggler tells you about manners and culture being unnecessary to a smuggling career please do yourself a favour and ignore them completely. Being a smuggler does not require someone to be uncouth and uncultured." She answered in a manner that suggested that she felt it answered everything.

"That's not really an answer, Ma'm." He probed, sensing that there was more behind this than just a disgusted with an 'uncivilised' venture.

"There is more. I'd rather not get into it as most outsiders don't understand easily." She muttered as she began to walk towards the door of the palace.

"Are you going to ever tell me what that means?"

She shrugged before turning her attention back to the door to the little android the Hutt had installed to simultaneously detect threats and greet guests. The little droid twittered at her in Huttese and the Kantaanian answered back in fluent albeit reluctant Huttese. What was said evidently pleased the little droid and the doors opened swiftly thereafter.

They were greeted by a mass of the Hutt's guards and retainers, which the Kantaanian smuggler Talon observed, found incredibly tasteless yet understood the reasoning. In their business, it was a simple and well-known rule: those who did not become at least a little suspicious of their colleagues and business associates would end up dead in short order.

She conversed with the Hutt's main servant, the Twi'lek Bib Fortuna, asking if Car'das' request for an audience to negotiate for the information he had inquired about earlier. Talon caught much of it- the Twi'lek was trying to bluff his way out of it but the Kantaanian would have nothing of it. She insisted and hissed at the Twi'lek in plain Basic so that all could hear.

"You tell that _leug-na _Hutt that I know he has that information and that I will be leaving with that information today. I don't care if that Hutt thinks he can get a better price from someone else because I didn't come here to this desiccated dustball for nothing. You go tell that Hutt that if I leave here empty handed for no good reason that I'll make sure to ruin his reputation with Car'das and any other Corellian smuggler that I can find. Think about it very carefully _demasu ta, _very carefully."

Talon knew little about the Kantaanian language but guessed that _leug-na _might mean liar. What _demasu ta _meant, he had no idea. But judging from the look of the Twi'lek's face, its meaning wasn't likely all that complimentary.

Muttering something under his breath, Bib Fortuna beckoned the pair of smugglers forward and the guards fell back behind them. Before they set about following Fortuna to the grand audience chamber, Pajari took him aside and quietly whispered to him.

"Remember that was a ploy. A smuggler must maintain a veneer of civilization and be willing to put it aside when necessary. Being a civilized smuggler doesn't mean being stupid."

The whole rest of the affair went off without a hitch. Jabba the Hutt sat on his dais with the complimentary scantily clad slave girl chained to him, various vicious looking pets, and a heavily battered albeit polished translator droid that given the Hutt's legendary anger wouldn't last much longer. Bib Fortuna whispered into the Hutt's ear slit and the Hutt growled in anger.

There was much back and forth between the two of them- the Kantaanian smuggler and the Hutt, speaking through his translator droid. Though Talon knew that Pajari could speak near flawless Huttese, she wasn't letting the Hutt have the satisfaction of having a negotiation conducted in the language. A little petty, in Talon's opinion, but it wasn't his problem yet. He was still but the learner and not yet the master.

Jabba tried to deny that there was a deal at first but Pajari wisely had an ace up her sleeve- a data pad detailing a series of communications between the Hutt and Car'das regarding the information in question. The Hutt crime lord then acquiesced that he indeed had the information but that it was far more valuable to others- Car'das and his associates could only have it if they were willing to pay triple the agreed upon price.

Pajari's face didn't betray anything. She merely looked completely placid and strangely non-pulsed. Then she began to speak once again, saying that the information, while valuable, wasn't worth triple the agreed upon price. If anything, the price should remain the same as nothing had emerged yet that made that information any more valuable than it already was. Car'das had agreed to twenty thousand credits, no more, no less.

As the translator droid translated Pajari's reply, the Hutt grew extremely angry and sharply bashed the hapless droid in the head so hard that it lost some degree of its motor control. The droid promptly rammed itself into a nearby wall and collapsed on to the floor. Clearly, the droid would no longer be performing any translation services.

Jabba wasn't impressed with this gambit and had enough. He demanded the removal of the Car'das party from his presence immediately. And his Gamorrean guards moved to immediately remove the smugglers from his presence when Pajari immediately shouted out in Huttese.

"_If this is the way in which you Hutts conduct business, then perhaps that explains why your people were never able to win the Salastian Conflict or the Calatann Disorders against my people. No doubt you find my even mentioning them to be distasteful but you have decided to start this, so here we are. Shall we discuss an...alternative arrangement?" _

It was then that they discussed an alternative arrangement.

At the end of the affair, Talon Karrade could personally say that he was impressed with what he had observed. It was a somewhat different method than he had expected but found interesting. Much of it, he gathered, had something to do with the tensions between the Hutt crime lord and the Kantaanian smuggler for being, well a Hutt and Kantaanian.

Pajari was quiet as they began the walk to their rented speeder to begin the journey back to Mos Eisley. He wondered if she would talk at all about what had happened. He wondered if she would explain to him exactly what the significance of the Salastian Conflict and Calatann Disorders were vis-a-vis the Hutts and the Kantaanians. He wasn't even completely sure if he would ever find out.

But he had to try. To learn what he needed to know, he had to find out. And that meant he had to ask the question in order to get the answers he needed.

"What was that back there, Captain?" he eventually asked as they began to check over the land speeder.

One could never be too careful with an angry and potentially vengeful Hutt, after all.

"That was something you should avoid doing if you can. Bringing up ancient history like that, particularly if it is violent and ended very badly for your opponent or his ancestors, is usually a risky gambit that can blow up spectacularly in your face." She murmured quietly as she examined the land speeder's dashboard, tapping various instruments and flicking switches to check if anything was rigged to explode.

Still curious, he felt pressed to ask further questions.

And all he got in response was this:

"_Sometimes, business is war." _

Fin


End file.
